


More Than Meets The Eye

by Theobromine



Series: This Is How It Goes [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale schools on entitlement, Fluffy Ending, M/M, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3227117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theobromine/pseuds/Theobromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Derek shouldn't really work but they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Meets The Eye

**Author's Note:**

> So I messed around a little with the 'facts' of Teen Wolf, but as it's a fanfic, I hope I'll be pardoned :) It's my first fic, so please go easy on me!

Some days Derek forgets about Kate completely and he just goes about his life; he does mundane things like wash his clothes and buy milk and eggs, he tries to keep the weeds from consuming his family home. These are the good days. 

It’s been eight years since Kate Argent; her lips red, boots healed and smiles sharp. That was part of the appeal, he remembers. The way that she’d make him feel dangerous and alive and that she’d treat him like he was an adult. Of course he looks back now and only can see how she used him, how she saw through him and manipulated his feelings all along. It’s a bitter moment each and every time that he remembers the fool he was taken for, because she ripped out his heart and gutted him, at least that’s what it feels like. He tries not to think of his house as a metaphor for his heart but it is, isn’t it. Both burnt down and blackened by the same woman. Stiles would laugh at him and compliment him on his poetic soul, a fond little grin curling around the edge of his lips. He tries not to think of Stiles in conjunction with Kate. It doesn’t always work.

His therapist tells him that he’s a victim of childhood trauma and throws around terms like ‘statutory rape’ and ‘PTSD’ and he thinks maybe she’s right, at least a little. For the most part he likes to forget this, likes to pretend that Kate didn’t happen to him. 

See, the problem is that he was over the whole Kate incident, at least on a functioning level - you can’t escape that kind of emotional baggage, he knows, only let it heal until is a dull throb of scar tissue, raised from the skin but no longer bleeding. And then Stiles happened to him. Derek supposes he is one of those kinds of people to whom things happen. He’s never an active participant, never asked. His therapist tells him he has consent issues. He thinks she might be right. 

***

This is how Stiles happens: one night in the summer he gets a call on his mobile phone from an unknown number. Wary, he glances at the time and is correct in his suspicions. It’s four in the morning. He rolls over in bed and doesn’t answer - anyone who would call this number would be in his contact list - it has to be a cold caller, there’s no other explanation. Directly after the call must have been directed to voicemail his phone rings again. And again. Sighing he taps the answer button. Whoever it is is persistent - it might be important he supposes. 

“Heeeeeey there, thanks for answering your phone sourwolf. Such a sweetheart really.” Stiles’ voice sounds off, sounds heavy and slow and Derek scowls.

“Are you drunk.” He scrubs a hand over his face in utter defeat. He will kill who ever gave Stiles alcohol - it’s not like the kid needs anything else in his system besides the Adderall and sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication that he knows Stiles takes. It wasn’t like he wanted to find out, but the pills that Stiles smells like are the same ones that Derek was taking, once upon a time.

“Maaaybe, maaaybe not.” Stiles practically giggles to himself at his own perceived wit. Derek might let out a growl. “Why are you calling me Stiles.” There’s a hiccupping noise and Derek is contemplating hanging up on this drunk phone call because contrary to popular belief, he really appreciates his sleep. If people think he’s grumpy normally then they haven’t seen him sleep deprived. 

Laura used to call him Sleeping Beauty and he used to hate it; he only misses it now - how she’d give him mugs of decaf with too much hazelnut syrup and weird low fat cream because if he had caffeine he’d never get to sleep but loved the taste of coffee. He actually secretly loved the way she’d make it and the way that she’d leave the mug on the kitchen table next to whatever his dad had cooked for breakfast that morning. Derek would gripe at her and say that he preferred his coffee black and bitter, thank you very much. It was a lie which everyone in the Hale family indulged him in. He would drink every drop and if Laura got an extra one of his special coffee and hazelnut brownies when he baked, well no one said anything. 

“Do you realise that you don’t actually ask questions like normal people? There’s something called an upward inflection which your voice is severely lacking in, it’s very disconcerting OK?” Derek grits his teeth, broken from his reverie. “Stiles. What. Do. You. Want.” There’s a pause finally and Derek can hear the thrum of bass music now that Stiles has stopped talking. “Are you at a club?” He asks incredulously because how on earth did Stiles get into a club? He’s seventeen for one and looks even younger for another. What kind of a moron served him alcohol? Stiles makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a laugh and a wince.

“Um, I’m at Jungle and Danny was with some guy the last I saw of him, pretty hardcore making out, and he might have been my ride home and I’m really really sorry because I know you don’t really want to talk to me right now or ever I guess but I can’t call my dad for obvious reasons and there’s some older guys who keep trying to buy me drinks and hit on me and let me tell you this ass of mine, however sweet, does not appreciate stranger junk pressed up into it no siree and I would be flattered, sure I guess but they’re in a group and I’m on my own and Derek please one of them tried to follow me into the bathroom earlier. I’m using the payphone in the coat room but I’m, I’m begging here.” 

Stiles is babbling which is normal, but underneath his words is a palpable tang of fear and something in Derek is surging with the need to defend Stiles from some older creeps who sound like they’re trying to take advantage of him. 

As gently as he can, he responds. “Stiles stay where you are, don’t drink anymore drinks. Don’t go outside - make sure to stay where you are and I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He knows for a fact that it takes at least half an hour to get to Jungle from where he lives if he abides by the speed limits. He gets there in exactly eighteen.

***

When Derek arrives at Jungle, Stiles is not in the coat room. There is a lingering trace of his scent in the air, though, which suggests that he was here only minutes ago. It’s overlaid with the pungent scent of alcohol and a muskier smell of some other man and Derek curses before heading into the main club area.

The club is still heaving even though at this point it’s four thirty in the morning, but that’s what you get for being the only decent gay club for miles around. He didn’t think much of it on the drive over but isn’t it interesting that Stiles is at a gay club? Derek stifles his lizard brain with a hint of self disgust - Stiles is seventeen - and focuses on trying to find him amongst writhing bodies. God, Derek hates clubs. People have no concept of personal space and for a werewolf it’s sensory overload. 

He spots the back of a buzzed head and the dotting of freckles on the back of a long neck. Stiles. His posture is tense, head angled downwards away from whoever is talking to him. It’s an older guy - maybe in his early thirties and Derek’s skin crawls. The man is crowding into Stiles’ space and gesturing with his hands impatiently. Stiles shakes his head briefly but the guy persists on wrapping one hand around Stiles’ upper arm.

Derek is there before he even consciously registers moving, back pressed flush against Stiles’ back. “Is this man bothering you babe?” Derek drawls the words out in a way that’s just the right combination of aggressive and dismissive that the guy backs up and sneers at Derek. Derek knows that later Stiles will tease him mercilessly for the use of the endearment but for now it’s working and Stiles is practically emanating gratitude. “Um, no, it’s fine. Um, Greg here was just being polite, erm. Asking to dance- thought I was, uh, lonely. But! You’re here now, so that’s, um, great. Fantastic!” Stiles is stuttering and he almost trips over himself to pull Derek away. Greg narrows his eyes. “Is that so? Seems like you weren’t here the whole night, which seems a little suspicious to me.”

Stiles widens his eyes, all faux innocence and sighs. “Well he’s a bad dancer so y’know…” Stiles waggles his hands in a strange approximation of jazz hands and quickly forces his way through the crowd to the exit. Derek can’t stifle a snort. He promises himself that he will never tell Stiles abut the dancing lessons he had up until he was fourteen and the competitions his mother forced him into. Pairing up with Laura, she would take great delight in stomping on his toes throughout the routines. To this day that is where he accredits the origins of his solid poker face. 

Greg doesn’t seem content on leaving them alone and they find themselves followed by him even when they are met by the cool night air outside of Jungle. Derek spins around gently pushing Stiles half a pace behind him. “Can I help you.” He flat out glares at the man. Greg has maybe ten years on him and what appears to be thirty pounds, but Derek is a werewolf; he’s not concerned. Greg is scowling a deeply malicious way. “I saw him first. He owes me for some drinks.” 

Stiles makes an angry noise but Derek subtly steps on his foot to shut him up before he can get himself into trouble. “Seems to me that he would like for you to leave him the hell alone. There’s nothing you can do, although you might want to reconsider your ideas of people as objects or property. There’s a little thing I call consent that doesn’t seem to have been given, so really, even if you have called fucking dibs, I don’t give a shit if you feel like you’re entitled to a human being because. You. Are. Not. I don’t care if you bought him a drink. That does not entitle you to anything, he does not ‘owe’ you even a second of his time. Got it?” 

Greg swings at him and stumbles forward when Derek steps out of his aim. He grabs Greg’s arm and pushes him away. The older man sways and manages to trip over Stiles’ foot. Unfortunately this causes Stiles to tip over too and as he stumbles to his knees ungracefully, Greg manages to viciously slam his elbow into Stiles’ face. All Derek can see is a white rage and for a brief minute Derek hears nothing and feels nothing except the contact of his fists against flesh. 

It takes Stiles grabbing at Derek to make him stop and he sees the panic in his eyes. “Derek, we have to go before someone calls the police, AKA, my dad’s colleagues.” He can see two men coming out of the club and one of them exclaims at Greg’s prone form. “Derek, those are his friends, please we need to leave now!” There’s a moment when Derek contemplates staying to fight, but the rage dissipates and he leads Stiles to where he parked the Camaro two streets over.

The air is frigid now but Derek barely notices. He does note Stiles visibly shaking and without thinking he hands his jacket over. He looks especially young in the glare from the sodium streetlights, the yellow light casting shadows so that they pool under his cheekbones, make dark smudges of his eyelashes and paints his face in sharp relief. He looks younger, sure, but paradoxically also older, there’s a clear suggestion of the man Stiles is becoming. It sends a low heat churning through Derek’s stomach but he pushes the feeling away. God, he’s never even thought of Stiles in that way before and he squashes the tangle of emotion that is rising in his chest.

***

“Derek?” Stiles’ voice is small and undefinable in a way that makes Derek uncomfortable - he compulsively categorises the nuances of peoples’ voices but he’s never heard this one before.

“What is it Stiles?” He flicks a glance to his right and sees Stiles hunched over his clasped hands. Stiles’ fingers are long and there’s a light dusting of hair over his forearms, but fair enough that it’s not very noticeable. He’s surprised the silence has lasted this long, to be honest. Stiles clears his throat “Did you really mean what you said earlier? That’s the most I think I’ve heard you speak in one go, like, ever.” 

Derek nods his head, short and swift. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.” That’s one thing Derek is adamant about - he can’t bear lying. Since Kate, he is very conscious of when people lie to him. It’s not as straight forward a skill as Stiles and the others seem to think, detecting falsehoods. Sure, there’s the uptick of a heart that can indicate lying, but that same uptick can also be from fear and from adrenaline. He used to associate Kate with danger and excitement. Now it’s knows it was mostly the lies he was hearing, not excitement at being with him. Kate was clever like that. A small part of him suspects that the lying and the excitement went hand in hand with someone like Kate, though. 

***

They arrive at the Hale house and Stiles starts. “Oh! I thought you were taking me home. What, I mean, why, are we here?”

Derek huffs a frustrated sigh. “I thought you didn’t want your dad to know that you were out, underaged gay clubbing on top of that. Don’t think that I didn’t notice that part.” Stiles’ mouth is hanging open in shock. Derek gestures Stiles to follow him into the kitchen. Wordlessly he rummages in the freezer section of his fridge for a bag of frozen peas. He doesn’t have an ice pack, but this is the next best thing.

Stiles’ eye is starting to swell and it’s got that sore, puffy look that indicates that it’ll hurt like a bitch come morning. Not that Derek gets shiners, but he does - did - have rambunctious human cousins so he knows a thing or two. He passes the bag over after wrapping it in a clean tea towel as an afterthought. Stiles’ mouth is still hanging open in shock and Derek rolls his eyes exasperatedly. “I may be a werewolf but I’m not a monster. You’ll catch flies.” He says, voice drier than desert sand.

Stiles clacks his teeth together before blushing a furious red. He presses the makeshift ice pack to his eye and winces immediately at the cold. Derek struggles for a moment internally. He sighs. Sometimes he hates that his mother practically inscribed manners and etiquette into his soul because these past few months of calm with Scott being the true alpha and all have meant that Derek is slipping back into his old beta persona. Technically he’s an alpha but it’s a little more complicated than that - he doesn’t need a pack after having been a lone wolf for the amount of time he was, he’s some hybrid between omega and alpha that’s settled him into his natural beta. Deacon had to explain everything to him. With diagrams. Derek thinks he’s still recovering from Deacon’s drawings of wolfed out Scott.

In his own way he loves the pack but he was never cut out for being alpha. The teens, like Isaac, were loyal to him because he was their alpha and for a while it worked. But it couldn’t hold together for long and in a significant way he’s glad that it hasn’t because he was forcing himself into a role that wasn’t naturally his. He sees the pack around and they seem happy. Well, apart from Stiles, that is. The tension of the past danger seems to have taken up permanent residence in his bones.

He cuts off that mental train and as his manners have already taken over, he’s ushered Stiles to properly sit down at he kitchen table. Turning the coffee machine, he sets a pot of decaf going. Stiles starts, “Uh, sorry, Derek. I don’t drink coffee anymore.” The shock of the night seems to have made Stiles quieter, more introspective at least for the moment. Derek hums under his breath, even facing monsters including all manner of ghosts and ghouls, Stiles would babble incessantly. He puts it down to the addition of alcohol to the night - even at the worst of it, Stiles would never drink - Derek knows Stiles’ views of drinking - has seen the way that Stiles tenses whenever his dad sips even a light beer. History of alcoholism and depression, he’d once mentioned lightly, in passing. Derek pushes the thoughts to the side. He’ll deal with one thing at a time for now.

He glances back at Stiles whose face is mostly obscured by the peas pressed to his face. “I know you don’t - we were all there for the Incident That Shall Not Be Named. It’s decaf.” Stiles cackles unexpectedly and it loosens up some of the worry Derek didn’t even realise that he’d been harbouring for Stiles. “Dude, it’s not Voldemort - I just had too much caffeine in one night alright. We returned those golf carts and none of the chickens were actually hurt.” 

Stiles grins widely as Derek half heartedly rolls his eyes and snarks right back. “Don’t call me dude.” Stiles raises an eyebrow challengingly. “How about babe then?” Derek knew that that would haunt him and he bites down the retort that’s on the tip of his tongue in favour of asking Stiles whether he wants pancakes or waffles. His stomach gurgles loudly. Derek nods decisively in response. “Right. You’re on batter, I’m on eggs and bacon.”

Ten minutes later Derek places a mug of decaf coffee with too much weird low fat cream and extra hazelnut syrup next to where Stiles is expertly flipping pancakes and working the waffle machine simultaneously. Stiles loves the coffee. Of course he does.


End file.
